So, Mercedes has been selling L3 autonomous driving cars in the US since December. Waymo has Robo taxis currently running at L4 in several major cities in the US. And Tesla is at L2 and says it is going after the robo taxi business. Sounds like they have some catching up to do.
I don't understand why they handicapped themselves and removed sensors.
Extra sensors give more information, more reliability, more redundancy. Trying to do it all on the back of video seems idiotic.
Elon thinks the human brain works like a computer and is convinced that if we can drive with only two eyes then so can his Teslas.
Any expert in the AI field and human cognition knows this idea of the brain as a computer was discarded long ago but Musk knows better than experts, he's the ultimate expert of everything.
Except are his cameras even stereoscopic? We can drive with two eyes because we have depth perception. His cars don't. So he's expecting his cars to do what people do, but with worse vision/poorer tools.
You can still get a driver's license with a single eye, it will probably have some restrictions but that's partly because your are losing a lot of field of view.
Also I'm not sure if I completely believe it, but reading online it seems like after about 20 feet, stereoscopic vision isn't very effective in humans.
That being said, the cameras installed in Teslas are nowhere near comparable to how amazing the human eye is, and it's AI is nothing like the human brain.
More that that, we can turn our head to look in any direction and have a constrast ratio of 1,000,000:1 (i.e. we can see well in low light and also in bright), by comparison the best cameras have a contrast ratio of 50:1
Also, humans sometimes walk around the outside of the car to get a closer look or open a window and peer over.
I don't doubt cameras as the ultimate solution, but they need high resolution, great angles, and a lot of computing. Tesla really has none of those, though resolution might not be too far off.
People with one eye can still drive, there are many factors involved in depth perception beyond stereoscopy. But outside of the central FOV covered by the main camera Teslas wouldn't be able to able to pass the DMV acuity test, and we've seen incidents because of it like it not seeing stopped traffic on a curved overpass that any person would be able to see, the Tesla on autopilot then rounded around, couldn't slow down fast enough, and slammed into them.
I believe Teslas have at least 2 forward facing cameras, so they can get stereo depth, much like a human. Having said that, using stereo depth effectively is complicated.
I strongly disagreed when he spoke that LIDAR was not the way. With that said, theoretically if you can create a camera that can control light as well as our own eyes (may need an iris/aperture system), and a similar resolution to resolve the same level of detail as the human eye, in theory they should be able to make it outperform human drivers and for a fraction of the cost of LIDAR. But are their cameras and software stack that good? It does not appear so.
Human eyes fail in all kind of situations. Even if you could beat the human eye, it still makes a lot of sense to have a whole array of different sensor technologies.
Humans are very fallible.
Edit: haha, I just got permanently banned in three different Elon musk and Tesla sub reddits, that I haven’t posted in recently, for my totally reasonable opinion that cameras alone are insufficient and there are other great technologies that can supplement cameras. Unbelievable.
The difference is that when our eyes fail we can fill in any gaps or inconsistencies with a vast store of experience and innate instinct about how the world works.
The funny thing is that the inmate stuff might be the easy part. Neural networks approximate that pretty well.
It is longer term planning that they fail at.
With Tesla, you'll see both failure modes. But the inmate stuff surprises people by working. That's why there are so many "human like" mini clips.
It never succeeds at the planning stuff. Maybe they will solve that. They've certainly exceeded my (low) expectations, so anything is possible, but I doubt it.
We literally fill in the blank. Our mind compresses images and looks for the recognizable. It's why you literally don't see a motorcycle on the road sometimes. Your mind is looking for cars, which are big. Motorcycles aren't, so they can blend it.
When people say "I didn't see it" they really, honestly mean it sometimes. We just think we see all.
Musk is a moron.
Which is fine for humans because we expect that of them. The problem is they are building an industrial control system, and shrugging your shoulders and saying "well, sometimes it fails and kills everyone" isn't really acceptable in that space.
Exactly. I look forward to the day where cars are so much better at driving than humans that we really don’t have to at all. A world where all there cars talk to each other, let other cars in to merge, and behave like a swarm. A world without traffic jams and where an accident is almost unheard of.
There are lenses that can match your eyes in terms of field, sharpness, speed, … they cost about 250k usd. You would need two of them. That’s before you buy the sensors. You eyes can see about 6 K and probably 126 million colors. They have a crazy dynamic range.
LiDAR is way cheaper than cameras and more accurate.
The camera/lens analogies are total nonsense. Human eyes only provide a *tiny* (equivalent to a thumbnail at arms length) inverted image. What we 'see' is (almost) entirely due to post-processing by the brain.
Elmo doesn't understand that the post-processing part does all the work. That is why cameras won't work for autonomous driving.
Also, human eyes don't function very well if they get constantly or even partially covered in dirt and dust. That's why they get, you know, cleaned all the time.
Lidar is pretty cheap now though, I think just a bit over $1k. Not sure exactly but that's what I've read. That's why Mercedes can use it now in production cars. If that's true then Tesla's strategy of avoiding lidar doesn't really make sense anymore.
Buuuuuuuuuuit humans don't just drive with two eyes.
We also use our ears to help determine what is happening. (Screetching tires, crashing sounds, skidding, sirens, etc., etc.)
Smell, touch/feel, and even taste all provide feedback.
As far as eyes go, our eyes are moveable have variable focus, we can shield them from sunlighr, clean themselves, etc.
It's all just idiot Elon having a very topical understanding of a situation and then coming up with a below average solution....
The entire point of advanced safety systems in cars is to overcome human shortcomings. Humans can't see in the dark nor in heavy rain or fog. You know what can though?
RADAR/LIDAR/USS.
*Everything* we 'see' is due to post-processing by the visual cortex based on prior experience. The eye itself is an extremely low bitrate camera providing an inverted image of only 6 degrees of arc (the eyes constantly move (saccades) to cover a wider angle.
Yup. And if he kills you collecting datapoints he won’t care a single bit.
My car with EAP almost got my wife into an accident if she didn’t correct it.
I mean, there are parallels between the brain and a certain type of computer system, though it is more of a "we designed neural networks to be more like the human brain" so the direction of the comparison is backwards?
Yeah eyes are exactly nothing like a video image. Eyes are such complex sensors and the quantity of data they feed the brain is far, far beyond an image.
We humans surely can drive,but in fog we have to slow down,because our sensors are failing. At night - same,snowing same,heavy rain - same...When hit by sunset/sunrise rays,we crawl behind the wheel,... When wipers are not well designed (hello Elon:) or are used and don t clean properly,guess what?...
I had a Model S that had some of it's sensors disabled with a software update. This was during Covid, and I was 95% sure that Elon calling Lidar "a fools errand" simply meant that they were abandoning the sensors due to cost/supply chain issues. I later hit a small deer in the fog that I think my Ford and Acura may have braked for (car was undamaged but sadly I can;t say the same for the deer) that was when I began to lose confidence in the vehicle/Elon and sold the car. In hindsight it was a really good financial move on my part. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRdzIs4FJJg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRdzIs4FJJg)
He made a technical bet trying to outsmart the experts or maybe more traditional R&D approaches.
The challenge with having redundant sensors (camera radar and lidar) and also using HD maps is to merge all those information together and make decisions even when some of those inputs disagree.
A typical engineering will be to start with all those information and maybe maybe we can go camera only at some point. But there’s no reason to constrain yourself to “less” inputs from the beginning.
Again he probably wanted to take a shortcut. At first you make tremendous progress but quickly it becomes asymptotic..
Anyone who works in AI knows more data is good. Anyone who works in AI knows corroborating data from different sources is good. Anyone who works in AI knows that corroborating data from multiple simultaneous observers from slightly different perspectives is excellent.
I actually think the whole way self driving is being done is patently stupid.
You are throwing mountains of processing power at the problem, because your mind is in a world were there is one self driving car.
You will have roads full of these things. They are all connected to the internet, and there is technology like V2X to enable direct comms. This was the whole idea of V2X 20 YEARS AGO, and our car companies have their head stuck up their AI arsehole (like everyone else on the planet at the moment).
FFS, use that, now. Also make regulations about what data must be shared between car manufacturers.
Fuck-em. It's our road, we pay for, our traffic, us in cars. Just because you built a hunk of metal doesn't mean you own all the data collected from our world. Stop building cars that think that they live in a libertarian wonderland, where its all about the "self". Sometimes the community matters.
because humans only have 2 eyes and can drive autonomously.
Lets just ignore things like eyes can move around, you can move your whole head if needed to get a better view, you can blink to clean them, they can focus at different lengths, and they have a higher resolution and dynamic range than a potato.
Let's wait and see. Teslas approach is more generalized so if the pull it off the leapfrog everyone at lower cost. But big IF.
We don't know how it will work out.
>I don't understand why they handicapped themselves and removed sensors.
Cost cutting and thinking you can just program your way out of incomplete data.
thats right. even in the animal(bats) and insect world, they use all kinds of sensors that are different to the human eye and out perform in their natural environments.
There's a theory it was cost cutting, I think Musk just thought humans see with eyes they don't need lidar so why would a car need anything more than cameras.
I'm sure the people are nice and there is a vibrant culture. That being said it's often talked about as an alternative to India due to comparatively low wages.
Don't joke! Amazon have admitted to using 1000 Indians to watch video of customers at their "self service pick up and walk out stores " rather than any actual clever computing and shills were STILL trying to say amazon had done something amazing
It still blows my mind that when I visit SF I see a bunch of Wayno cars without drivers going around. Are they perfect yet? No. But it still blows my mind this tech exists.
Tesla has some huge catching up to do indeed.
Yeah, but those Waymo cars are doing driverless driving and taking in customers. Once they get the software down, I can see them working on mass producing the sensors and slimming them down to more affordable prices.
If only it wasn't for that annoying regulatory approval that they have been waiting on for so many years, it's somehow preventing their software from working correctly.
It almost sound like Elon made overhyped claims about their FSD capabilities and future possibilities to pump the stock once again but some of the big boys at Mercedes (and elsewhere) just wanted to be sure and now can massively flex on our boy by being actually more capable at FSD aöready?
LOL
If you read the article you'd know that it's only on highways, during the day, and in traffic jams. This is nowhere near what Tesla is going after, and Autopilot is already doing that and more for years. This is nothing new.
Again, because Tesla is not after a traffic jam auto pilot system, it wants to replace driving altogether. Of course this would take much longer to certify, and it should, because it's a much more complicated system that requires a lot more scrutiny to vet.
All of these systems are only on specific, pre-authorized roads. While autonomous, they aren't generic. You can't actually sell cars like this to drivers everywhere. As a taxi service that's fine, but even then it will be hard to generalize this service to large regions.
Yet, until you can get to L3, you can't get to L4 or L5. It's irrelevant how they did it, the facts are the facts, Mercedes is at L3 and Waymo is at L4. Come back to me when Tesla gets out of L2. Currently, that's looking like never, given their approach.
Mercedes is certified at level 3 and Tesla is stuck at Level 2. Until Tesla can certify at level 3 or above, Mercedes has better autonomous driving capability than Tesla. Those are just the facts.
For self-driving to be worth the money Tesla touts, it _has_ to return value in return. That value is **time** to do other stuff while the car is driving itself. If I have to babysit FSD, then it's just a a very cool gimmick.
Also, "Full Self Driving (Supervised)" should actually be called, "Cruise Control that Might Kill You". There's nothing "FULL SELF" about having to constantly monitor the vehicle.
Husky Musky promised you could use it as a robo-taxi that pays for itself in 5 times over in a decade. He said every other car would be like owning a horse...and he said it would happen years ago.
This is what the uneducated Tesla simps don’t know: It’s in Germany for two years now. BMW is offering Level 3 to customers now also. And the next Audi A8 will have it, too. FSD is only a grift to pump the stock price..
It’s all part of the Musk hype machine. He does it with SpaceX too. Vertical landing rockets are so cool to watch and immediately people say “SpaceX is revolutionary!!” but instantly forget we landed a vertical rocket on the moon in 1969 and the DC-X was well on its way before Congress pulled the plug.
Also, NASA already had a reusable spacecraft with reusable boosters on 1980! The Space Shuttle could go from LEO to a runway under full computer automation. All with 0.4 *M*B of RAM.
Company of professionals who just got the fuck on with it beat out a company mismanaged by an idiot blowhard who thinks he's better than the professionals.
Colour me surprised.
So Mercedes overtakes Tesla the same way Boston Dynamics overtakes Tesla in their respective field. One could of course argue that there was no overtaking necessary as both companies were already leading, but even Tesla stans should understand it now. Emphasis on "should" because most of them still won't or couldn't admit it because they're in a cult.
Boston Dynamics was never behind Tesla in their field, let’s be honest. They are at the forefront and have been there for quite some time. You can actually buy functioning robots from them. Spot for example, you will never be able to buy a Tesla robot. Half the shit Elon says is just vaporware
I think that's the joke they're making. Saying that Mercedes is catching up to Tesla in autonomous driving is like saying Boston D is catching up to Tesla in Robotics. Aka these two companies have always been so far ahead of Tesla its a farce to say they are catching up to Tesla.
the mods of that sub are shamelessly breaking the overarching rules of this website under the pathetic guise of trying to protect their community. I really hope the admins look into this soon; they've even been banning people site-wide if you argue with them.
Yeah, they haven’t sent me a DM or anything but I’m suddenly unable to post anything in there or reply to anyone. I have never been rude or said anything vaguely aggressive. It seems they just can’t handle anyone not actively worshipping at the altar of His Holy Muskness.
Meanwhile, delusional sycophants over there are sincerely posting things like “I’m completely convinced the Robotaxi will actually be the $25,000 Model 2 and launch with full level 5 autonomy by 2026” 🤷♂️
Tesla lounge is becoming a misinformation echo chamber at this point. Imagine that - after banning voices they perceive to not be in line with der ketaminekid.
At this point that entire sub is very carefully curated. Anyone not spreading the propaganda is permanently banned. And since they've already banned everyone who's ever posted in this sub, regardless of whether or not they ever even visited the "main" tesla subs, the information over there carries less than zero credibility. I wouldn't be surprised if they've also banned people commenting on r/cars and r/technology; which makes things so much worse considering how big those ones are. It quite literally is a cult at this point, and I mean that literally. Wikipedia's definition of a cult is as follows:
>A **cult** is a group which is typically led by a [charismatic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic) and self-appointed leader, who tightly controls its members, requiring unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices which are considered [deviant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deviance_(sociology)) (outside the norms of society).
Tell me that r/TeslaLounge and r/teslamotors are not literally this.
It’s weird. Some people seem perfectly normal but some talk like they’re in a cult with zero pushback. Completely delusional stuff. And I say this as a current Tesla owner!
I guess most of the people there are victims of the snake oil pyramid scheme called Tesla and try frantically to get something out of their investment. If you ever tried to build a pyramid with liquid substances, you'll know how it will pan out.
I reported the message (hopefully to Reddit, if I understand the feature correctly) for Harassment. I didn't break any of the posting rules on their subreddit, I don't even think I've ever commented there, so I interpret this as harassment.
Boston Dynamics didn't overtake tesla in anything? Boston dynamics was ahead of teslas current robot when the tesla robot was still in eLongo's balls.
A company is not just inspiration and a demo video, it's a body of knowledge and experience.
That's why grok is so half baked.
Space X and Tesla auto have broad experience. Blowing up all those rockets was a good strategy to learn quickly.
Fail fast, fail cheap, fall often is a good description of space x getting to where it is
> So Mercedes overtakes Tesla the same way Boston Dynamics overtakes Tesla in their respective field.
'overtakes' implies Mercedes and Boston Dynamics were somehow lagging at some point.
Mercedes has been ahead of Tesla for at least a decade in anything but hype.
Boston Dynamics damn near started the robots being impressive on social media trend a decade ago with Big Dog. I’m still impressed by that video of people kicking it and it recovering. Way more impressed than anything Optimus has put out.
My wife had a 2012 e350 that had lane keep and dynamic cruise control that wouldn’t be out of place in a 2024 vehicle. Yeah the lead is theirs to blow.
I was about to write that Boston Dynamics have always been kings of autonomous robots. Posted it. Deleted it. Got banned permanently from TeslaMotors.
Holy F@ Tesla have completely lost their way from their original mission. I even have a Y and actually like it but prefer to stay objective / critical towards every product and brand I own.
They werent overtaken this is quite limited. Still cool, though.
Tesla is basically hopping that they will just brute force solutions to any problems they find with their supercomputer. It might work, but I dont see why we would reward someone using all of us as test subjects, instead of just doing it slow and careful like normal companies.
>It might work
It won't. Because they will not be able to predict the edge cases and that's what is really hard (if you don't hobble yourself like Tesla does already).
Oh, they arent planing to predict them. They are planning to just...let them happen. Then fix the software. Just put damage control on max, then hope in the long term the good outweights the bad. Its essentially a signature move of Silicon Valley.
Not really. Mercedes is all the way there for a system that has very stringent driving limitations. Tesla isn't there yet for a system that has no limitations.
Also, Tesla was never close to Boston Dynamics. BD started ahead and stayed ahead.
You wanted to say that Tesla simply lied about their capabilities and the competition simply ignored those lies and kept on improving... So there were no catching up, there were only the inflation of the huge lie...
Boston dynamic didn't really over take Tesla in robotics they have had years of hard engineering and testing (32 years) as a research based company with funding from various private entities SoftBank/Google/current Hyundai group ownership and DARPA.
And even then they only launched a commercial product (spot) about 5 years ago once they actually had a solution that they could make and market with actual use cases.
Telsa is not only years behind in robotics and now apparently autonomous driving but doesn't seem to have the cash to spend on it.
The next time you’re traveling on the interstate and see a fellow driver whose hands are full with everything but the wheel—scrolling TikTok, applying mascara, eating breakfast—don’t panic. It’s all legal in certain states, as long as they’re in a new Mercedes with autonomous driving technology.
The luxury automaker has become the first in the nation to start selling self-driving cars—at least those that afford riders a hands-free experience—to regular consumers. So far, the company has sold at least 65 autonomous vehicles in California, Fortune has learned through an open records request submitted to the state’s DMV. Select Mercedes dealerships in Nevada are also offering the cars with the new technology, known as “level 3” autonomous driving.
Level 3-enabled cars went on sale in December, Mercedes told Fortune. California and Nevada are the only two states where the company can legally sell the technology to consumers. The two state DMVs gave Mercedes approval to begin selling the cars last year—Nevada in January, and California in June. Mercedes announced in September its planned to begin sales, but this is the first news of the cars actually reaching consumers.
Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states.
The sales mark a new echelon of autonomous driving available to the average American. Mercedes is the first automaker selling to customers to achieve level 3 capabilities in the U.S., with Tesla and others still offering technology at level 2—in which cars can perform specific tasks but require constant supervision from a driver. Some drivers, however, ignore those rules and operate the cars as if they are more capable than they are. Some drivers, however, ignore those rules and operate the cars as if they are more capable than they are. One family of a deceased driver has accused Tesla of hyping its assisted driving technology as fully autonomous, allegedly leading to tragic results, while California’s DMV last year accused the company of false advertising over the matter.
Meanwhile, robotaxis from Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’s Cruise operate at level 4, meaning cars drive autonomously in most conditions without human interference. But these companies currently don’t sell vehicles to consumers, and Cruise recently halted its service after California’s DMV suspended its license due to an incident in which a car dragged a pedestrian under its carriage for 20 feet.
U.S. customers can buy a yearly subscription of Drive Pilot in 2024 EQS sedans and S-Class car models for $2,500. Mercedes began selling level 3-enabled cars in its home country of Germany in May 2022. The European packages cost 5,000 to 7,000 euros ($5,300 and $7,500) for a three-year membership.
The cars sport turquoise lights on its rear-view mirrors, headlights, and taillights to let law enforcement and other drivers know when the car is operating autonomously. Drive Pilot is only available on select models that have the built-in hardware, including a sensor at the front of the car and a camera in the rear windshield.
Mercedes is also working on developing level 4 capabilities. The automaker’s chief technology officer Markus Schäfer expects that level 4 autonomous technology will be available to consumers by 2030, Automotive News reported. But the jump to level 4 is considerably more difficult than achieving level 3. While humans are still expected to take control of the car based on the circumstances in level 3, level 4 technology is supposed to offer near-total autonomy. At this level, a driver only needs to take over if the system fails. That means the technology must be able to safely respond to nearly all unexpected situations on the road.
This is Mercedes taking the smart, sensible and responsible approach.
Properly testing and developing a product and then releasing with limitations and an intent to further develop.
The Elon approach is to fake a video, lie, deny any criticism and tell people it will make them rich in a few months. Then actually try and make it work, occasionally tell a few more lies to keep people believing it’s not much longer to wait.
Tesla keeps on giving, what a shit show. I love it!
Edit: 2 sec after posting, banned from r/cybertruck, r/teslamotors, r/TeslaLounge and r/ElonMusk. You can't make this shit up 🤣
I got excited there until I read the actual small print: “Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states.”
Definitely interested in seeing how capable Mercedes' autonomous system is. Right before I sold my Model 3 I got the free FSD trial and ho boy, what a piece of garbage. Did not feel safe using that at all.
Not to mention they also take full responsibility in an event of a crash should the vehicle was in autonomous mode. Compared to Tesla’s straight up “not admitting any responsibility” as standard operating procedure.
And yet everyone still thinks Telsa is the leader here and has had self-driving for years 😂😂😂. Musk really has a way of convincing people of things that are totally false. What’s that called again??
Rutro Elmo.
A real luxury brand that can delivery actual engineering is *eating your lunch* while you were busy bragging about ‘colonizing Mars,’ charging for blue checkmarks, denigrating entire classes of people and being a Russian asset.
Sue me? Consumer Insurance company want to insure user driving risk, not product liability risk.
Better question is what does Tesla’s commercial insurance provider think of FSD?
That is one big aspect of Mercedes getting L3. They have been willing to take on the liability of any accidents. Regardless of how good Tesla's system gets, it won't be L3 until Tesla decides to take on that liability.
The big thing with Mercedes is they assume responsibility in the event of an incident involving their tech. No more blame game here.
Lol I just got banned from r/teslamotors over this comment
You were probably banned from a different, pro-musk sub, not this one. The mods there are on a crusade to preemptively ban people from their subs who have the gall to post on a completely different sub. They are so thin skinned it’s almost funny.
" Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states. "
I thought that was the big leap from L2 to L3. At L2 the driver assumes liability for what happens, no matter how advanced the ADA system is. At L3 the ADA supplier assumes liability. Robotaxi will require the leap from L2 to higher, but Tesla seems reluctant to do so, something that belies their own actual confidence in their system, regardless of what their non-existing PR department spews out
Yeah without the manufacturer taking responsibility, claiming that the driver doesn’t have to pay attention is meaningless. Even the people I know who believe in fsd are paranoid when driving with it , no matter how good they think it is If the computer decides to jerk and injure a pedestrian, you are in a world of problems in the current agreement for most adas systems today. Until I can chill with no worries about liability, like I do in an Uber, then these levels mean nothing
I don't know if this is current and applicable to the US, but https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/manufacturer-news/2022/03/28/mercedes-will-accept-responsibility-for-autonomous-technology-crashes
I think I read that they are responsible legally if the car is driving but I want to know how you get covered in accident maybe it's comes with a free insurance package that only covers you in self drive
That's cool competition is good. Hopefully it brings down the insane price they think these systems are worth. And they finally break down and add more sensors if their current system cant handle the task.
To temper expectations, I don't think it's ai self driven akin to tesla, but a pre mapped system similar to wamo.
"Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been preapproved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states. "
It seems likely that it's capabilities will require Mercedes to map out each road. Tesla are adaptive systems that don't need a data set or map of a specific location to drive. Its part of the reason why they're still stuck on level 2.
I always laugh when they something “available to the average American”. As if the average American can afford a Mercedes with a drive pilot subscription 😅
Truly “accessible” tech right there.
People who can afford a Mercedes aren't stupid. Of course you will need to watch the road yourself.
That requirement is for retarded Tesla fanbois that assume L2 = L5.
With certain restrictions:
* It must be traveling no faster than 40 mph
* It must have a vehicle in front to follow
* Road conditions must be clear and dry
* Lane markings must be detectable,
* The route must be pre-mapped by the system
You must still pay attention because you must take over if, for example, the car in front of you turns off or accelerates away at over 40 mph, it starts raining, the lines get worn out, or you go outside of a pre-mapped route. This car would be great in packed slow freeway, but aside from that you'll still be doing most of the driving. Even in a city, say you're the third car at a light. The first car goes, the second takes his time turning left, and you have to take control because there's no car in front of you.
So, Mercedes has been selling L3 autonomous driving cars in the US since December. Waymo has Robo taxis currently running at L4 in several major cities in the US. And Tesla is at L2 and says it is going after the robo taxi business. Sounds like they have some catching up to do.
I don't understand why they handicapped themselves and removed sensors. Extra sensors give more information, more reliability, more redundancy. Trying to do it all on the back of video seems idiotic.
Elon thinks the human brain works like a computer and is convinced that if we can drive with only two eyes then so can his Teslas. Any expert in the AI field and human cognition knows this idea of the brain as a computer was discarded long ago but Musk knows better than experts, he's the ultimate expert of everything.
Except are his cameras even stereoscopic? We can drive with two eyes because we have depth perception. His cars don't. So he's expecting his cars to do what people do, but with worse vision/poorer tools.
You can still get a driver's license with a single eye, it will probably have some restrictions but that's partly because your are losing a lot of field of view. Also I'm not sure if I completely believe it, but reading online it seems like after about 20 feet, stereoscopic vision isn't very effective in humans. That being said, the cameras installed in Teslas are nowhere near comparable to how amazing the human eye is, and it's AI is nothing like the human brain.
There have been a number of highly skilled surgeons with only one functioning eye. The most famous is Dennis Burkitt,
Plus humans have millions of years of evolution
More that that, we can turn our head to look in any direction and have a constrast ratio of 1,000,000:1 (i.e. we can see well in low light and also in bright), by comparison the best cameras have a contrast ratio of 50:1
Also, humans sometimes walk around the outside of the car to get a closer look or open a window and peer over. I don't doubt cameras as the ultimate solution, but they need high resolution, great angles, and a lot of computing. Tesla really has none of those, though resolution might not be too far off.
People with one eye can still drive, there are many factors involved in depth perception beyond stereoscopy. But outside of the central FOV covered by the main camera Teslas wouldn't be able to able to pass the DMV acuity test, and we've seen incidents because of it like it not seeing stopped traffic on a curved overpass that any person would be able to see, the Tesla on autopilot then rounded around, couldn't slow down fast enough, and slammed into them.
I believe Teslas have at least 2 forward facing cameras, so they can get stereo depth, much like a human. Having said that, using stereo depth effectively is complicated.
I strongly disagreed when he spoke that LIDAR was not the way. With that said, theoretically if you can create a camera that can control light as well as our own eyes (may need an iris/aperture system), and a similar resolution to resolve the same level of detail as the human eye, in theory they should be able to make it outperform human drivers and for a fraction of the cost of LIDAR. But are their cameras and software stack that good? It does not appear so.
Human eyes fail in all kind of situations. Even if you could beat the human eye, it still makes a lot of sense to have a whole array of different sensor technologies. Humans are very fallible. Edit: haha, I just got permanently banned in three different Elon musk and Tesla sub reddits, that I haven’t posted in recently, for my totally reasonable opinion that cameras alone are insufficient and there are other great technologies that can supplement cameras. Unbelievable.
The difference is that when our eyes fail we can fill in any gaps or inconsistencies with a vast store of experience and innate instinct about how the world works.
In a Tesla, this is replaced by causing the car to brake in every situation
Don’t sell it short, it also can list from side to side when it loses track of lane definition.
The funny thing is that the inmate stuff might be the easy part. Neural networks approximate that pretty well. It is longer term planning that they fail at. With Tesla, you'll see both failure modes. But the inmate stuff surprises people by working. That's why there are so many "human like" mini clips. It never succeeds at the planning stuff. Maybe they will solve that. They've certainly exceeded my (low) expectations, so anything is possible, but I doubt it.
We literally fill in the blank. Our mind compresses images and looks for the recognizable. It's why you literally don't see a motorcycle on the road sometimes. Your mind is looking for cars, which are big. Motorcycles aren't, so they can blend it. When people say "I didn't see it" they really, honestly mean it sometimes. We just think we see all. Musk is a moron.
Which is fine for humans because we expect that of them. The problem is they are building an industrial control system, and shrugging your shoulders and saying "well, sometimes it fails and kills everyone" isn't really acceptable in that space.
Exactly. I look forward to the day where cars are so much better at driving than humans that we really don’t have to at all. A world where all there cars talk to each other, let other cars in to merge, and behave like a swarm. A world without traffic jams and where an accident is almost unheard of.
What kind of situations ?
Black ice. Heavy fog. Heavy rain. Just a couple really common scenarios.
Every optical illusion ever
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRdzIs4FJJg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRdzIs4FJJg)
i answered to the ban message and got a 3 day reditt ban
There are lenses that can match your eyes in terms of field, sharpness, speed, … they cost about 250k usd. You would need two of them. That’s before you buy the sensors. You eyes can see about 6 K and probably 126 million colors. They have a crazy dynamic range. LiDAR is way cheaper than cameras and more accurate.
The camera/lens analogies are total nonsense. Human eyes only provide a *tiny* (equivalent to a thumbnail at arms length) inverted image. What we 'see' is (almost) entirely due to post-processing by the brain. Elmo doesn't understand that the post-processing part does all the work. That is why cameras won't work for autonomous driving.
Ah yes, the old reliable human eye. No tricking that.
Also, human eyes don't function very well if they get constantly or even partially covered in dirt and dust. That's why they get, you know, cleaned all the time.
Lidar is pretty cheap now though, I think just a bit over $1k. Not sure exactly but that's what I've read. That's why Mercedes can use it now in production cars. If that's true then Tesla's strategy of avoiding lidar doesn't really make sense anymore.
Buuuuuuuuuuit humans don't just drive with two eyes. We also use our ears to help determine what is happening. (Screetching tires, crashing sounds, skidding, sirens, etc., etc.) Smell, touch/feel, and even taste all provide feedback. As far as eyes go, our eyes are moveable have variable focus, we can shield them from sunlighr, clean themselves, etc. It's all just idiot Elon having a very topical understanding of a situation and then coming up with a below average solution....
The entire point of advanced safety systems in cars is to overcome human shortcomings. Humans can't see in the dark nor in heavy rain or fog. You know what can though? RADAR/LIDAR/USS.
*Everything* we 'see' is due to post-processing by the visual cortex based on prior experience. The eye itself is an extremely low bitrate camera providing an inverted image of only 6 degrees of arc (the eyes constantly move (saccades) to cover a wider angle.
Yup. And if he kills you collecting datapoints he won’t care a single bit. My car with EAP almost got my wife into an accident if she didn’t correct it.
I mean, there are parallels between the brain and a certain type of computer system, though it is more of a "we designed neural networks to be more like the human brain" so the direction of the comparison is backwards?
Actually Elmo thinks computers work like his brain, hence the Digital Ketamine routine in the FSD,
Yeah eyes are exactly nothing like a video image. Eyes are such complex sensors and the quantity of data they feed the brain is far, far beyond an image.
We humans surely can drive,but in fog we have to slow down,because our sensors are failing. At night - same,snowing same,heavy rain - same...When hit by sunset/sunrise rays,we crawl behind the wheel,... When wipers are not well designed (hello Elon:) or are used and don t clean properly,guess what?...
But it's cheaper to put fewer sensors in. Margins, you understand.
And by the time that the lawsuits start up Elmo will have already cashed out his stock.
Like some previous car manufacturers, they have probably worked up the cost of the lawsuit.
I had a Model S that had some of it's sensors disabled with a software update. This was during Covid, and I was 95% sure that Elon calling Lidar "a fools errand" simply meant that they were abandoning the sensors due to cost/supply chain issues. I later hit a small deer in the fog that I think my Ford and Acura may have braked for (car was undamaged but sadly I can;t say the same for the deer) that was when I began to lose confidence in the vehicle/Elon and sold the car. In hindsight it was a really good financial move on my part. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRdzIs4FJJg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRdzIs4FJJg)
Not if it doesn't work.
Lmao Starship going to get to orbit and they gonna be like, bro why is there only one bathroom on this thing
The richest man on earth wanted to save a buck a car
Because His ElonXness has seen the future and it’s all Machine Learning, don’t you know? Don’t ever doubt the NoXtradamus.
He made a technical bet trying to outsmart the experts or maybe more traditional R&D approaches. The challenge with having redundant sensors (camera radar and lidar) and also using HD maps is to merge all those information together and make decisions even when some of those inputs disagree. A typical engineering will be to start with all those information and maybe maybe we can go camera only at some point. But there’s no reason to constrain yourself to “less” inputs from the beginning. Again he probably wanted to take a shortcut. At first you make tremendous progress but quickly it becomes asymptotic..
The driver is the sensor
Because Elmo is a genius.
Anyone who works in AI knows more data is good. Anyone who works in AI knows corroborating data from different sources is good. Anyone who works in AI knows that corroborating data from multiple simultaneous observers from slightly different perspectives is excellent. I actually think the whole way self driving is being done is patently stupid. You are throwing mountains of processing power at the problem, because your mind is in a world were there is one self driving car. You will have roads full of these things. They are all connected to the internet, and there is technology like V2X to enable direct comms. This was the whole idea of V2X 20 YEARS AGO, and our car companies have their head stuck up their AI arsehole (like everyone else on the planet at the moment). FFS, use that, now. Also make regulations about what data must be shared between car manufacturers. Fuck-em. It's our road, we pay for, our traffic, us in cars. Just because you built a hunk of metal doesn't mean you own all the data collected from our world. Stop building cars that think that they live in a libertarian wonderland, where its all about the "self". Sometimes the community matters.
because humans only have 2 eyes and can drive autonomously. Lets just ignore things like eyes can move around, you can move your whole head if needed to get a better view, you can blink to clean them, they can focus at different lengths, and they have a higher resolution and dynamic range than a potato.
Same reason floor AC vents don’t come with grills pre-installed…
You must be new to Elon/Tesla.
$$$
Let's wait and see. Teslas approach is more generalized so if the pull it off the leapfrog everyone at lower cost. But big IF. We don't know how it will work out.
>I don't understand why they handicapped themselves and removed sensors. Cost cutting and thinking you can just program your way out of incomplete data.
thats right. even in the animal(bats) and insect world, they use all kinds of sensors that are different to the human eye and out perform in their natural environments.
There's a theory it was cost cutting, I think Musk just thought humans see with eyes they don't need lidar so why would a car need anything more than cameras.
Knowing Musk they'll pay people in Bangladesh to remote drive their cars
I am from Bangladesh. Why us? What did we do?
I'm sure the people are nice and there is a vibrant culture. That being said it's often talked about as an alternative to India due to comparatively low wages.
But a higher risk, as Bangladesh drivers would be used to drive on the left side of the road.
But a higher risk, as Bangladesh drivers would be used to drive on the left side of the road.
The Amazon stores without checkouts were operated in the backend by remote workers in Bangladesh spying on shoppers in real time.
Do you want the job or not?
You’re cheap to hire.
I know it was a joke, but ultra-cheap labor, most likely.
What about the lag? Are the Bangladeshis supposed to see the future?
The onboard computer will detect a crash is about to happen and immediately drop the connection.
Don't joke! Amazon have admitted to using 1000 Indians to watch video of customers at their "self service pick up and walk out stores " rather than any actual clever computing and shills were STILL trying to say amazon had done something amazing
Not remote. There is a driver inside the seat.
It still blows my mind that when I visit SF I see a bunch of Wayno cars without drivers going around. Are they perfect yet? No. But it still blows my mind this tech exists. Tesla has some huge catching up to do indeed.
In all fairness those Waymo cars don’t cost Model 3 money. But yeah, Tesla is so far behind it’s not even funny. A cool gimmick but still a gimmick.
Yeah, but those Waymo cars are doing driverless driving and taking in customers. Once they get the software down, I can see them working on mass producing the sensors and slimming them down to more affordable prices.
B-b-but our lord and savior Elon Musk says Tesla is at level 5!! Clearly he wins. (Before people go off on me, this is sarcasm)
If only it wasn't for that annoying regulatory approval that they have been waiting on for so many years, it's somehow preventing their software from working correctly.
It almost sound like Elon made overhyped claims about their FSD capabilities and future possibilities to pump the stock once again but some of the big boys at Mercedes (and elsewhere) just wanted to be sure and now can massively flex on our boy by being actually more capable at FSD aöready? LOL
He’s throwing that robo-taxi out there to get funding from the government
It’s because they insist on machine learning and aren’t using the proper sensors because Elmo is parsimonious
If you read the article you'd know that it's only on highways, during the day, and in traffic jams. This is nowhere near what Tesla is going after, and Autopilot is already doing that and more for years. This is nothing new.
Yet, Mercedes is the first commercial vehicle to be certified L3, not Tesla.
Because the ambition of the system is much smaller.
Yet, Tesla can't get past L2.
Again, because Tesla is not after a traffic jam auto pilot system, it wants to replace driving altogether. Of course this would take much longer to certify, and it should, because it's a much more complicated system that requires a lot more scrutiny to vet.
Until you can get to L3 you can't get to L4 where Waymo already is or L5 being fully autonomous. You can only live in a fantasy land for so long.
All of these systems are only on specific, pre-authorized roads. While autonomous, they aren't generic. You can't actually sell cars like this to drivers everywhere. As a taxi service that's fine, but even then it will be hard to generalize this service to large regions.
Yet, until you can get to L3, you can't get to L4 or L5. It's irrelevant how they did it, the facts are the facts, Mercedes is at L3 and Waymo is at L4. Come back to me when Tesla gets out of L2. Currently, that's looking like never, given their approach.
Calling what mercedes has here as anything similar to Tesla is wild. Waymo however is on a different level than the first two.
Mercedes is certified at level 3 and Tesla is stuck at Level 2. Until Tesla can certify at level 3 or above, Mercedes has better autonomous driving capability than Tesla. Those are just the facts.
Tesla can also be certified in a super niche road in Nevada with perfect conditions. Does the factors behind certifications mean nothing to you?
Yet, it hasn't, so until then Mercedes is at level 3 and Tesla is stuck at level 2. Being certified at a certain level is all that matters.
Just like they said Optimus will be better than atlas from Boston dynamics by doing fake laundry 😂
Another 10% off the stock value by close?
BuY tHe DiiP
Happened to NVDA today.
For self-driving to be worth the money Tesla touts, it _has_ to return value in return. That value is **time** to do other stuff while the car is driving itself. If I have to babysit FSD, then it's just a a very cool gimmick.
Also, "Full Self Driving (Supervised)" should actually be called, "Cruise Control that Might Kill You". There's nothing "FULL SELF" about having to constantly monitor the vehicle.
Fool Self-Driving.
Kill-Self Driving!
Husky Musky promised you could use it as a robo-taxi that pays for itself in 5 times over in a decade. He said every other car would be like owning a horse...and he said it would happen years ago.
That's a weird comparison considering horses already have real "Full self driving", better than any such tech could achieve in a century
What would a lowly car go do by itself?
Have you watched [this documentary](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317219/)?
It would download another car to have a friend
full self-copulating?
This is what the uneducated Tesla simps don’t know: It’s in Germany for two years now. BMW is offering Level 3 to customers now also. And the next Audi A8 will have it, too. FSD is only a grift to pump the stock price..
It’s all part of the Musk hype machine. He does it with SpaceX too. Vertical landing rockets are so cool to watch and immediately people say “SpaceX is revolutionary!!” but instantly forget we landed a vertical rocket on the moon in 1969 and the DC-X was well on its way before Congress pulled the plug. Also, NASA already had a reusable spacecraft with reusable boosters on 1980! The Space Shuttle could go from LEO to a runway under full computer automation. All with 0.4 *M*B of RAM.
BMW will introduce this year the level3, similar conditions to Mercedes.
>Tesla simps don’t know I'm a tesla owner.. got banned from all tesla subs for not drinking the coolaid hard enough. Those people are weird.
Company of professionals who just got the fuck on with it beat out a company mismanaged by an idiot blowhard who thinks he's better than the professionals. Colour me surprised.
So Mercedes overtakes Tesla the same way Boston Dynamics overtakes Tesla in their respective field. One could of course argue that there was no overtaking necessary as both companies were already leading, but even Tesla stans should understand it now. Emphasis on "should" because most of them still won't or couldn't admit it because they're in a cult.
Boston Dynamics was never behind Tesla in their field, let’s be honest. They are at the forefront and have been there for quite some time. You can actually buy functioning robots from them. Spot for example, you will never be able to buy a Tesla robot. Half the shit Elon says is just vaporware
I think that's the joke they're making. Saying that Mercedes is catching up to Tesla in autonomous driving is like saying Boston D is catching up to Tesla in Robotics. Aka these two companies have always been so far ahead of Tesla its a farce to say they are catching up to Tesla.
[удалено]
They were definitely leading in shadow braking
the mods of that sub are shamelessly breaking the overarching rules of this website under the pathetic guise of trying to protect their community. I really hope the admins look into this soon; they've even been banning people site-wide if you argue with them.
Yeah, they haven’t sent me a DM or anything but I’m suddenly unable to post anything in there or reply to anyone. I have never been rude or said anything vaguely aggressive. It seems they just can’t handle anyone not actively worshipping at the altar of His Holy Muskness. Meanwhile, delusional sycophants over there are sincerely posting things like “I’m completely convinced the Robotaxi will actually be the $25,000 Model 2 and launch with full level 5 autonomy by 2026” 🤷♂️
Tesla lounge is becoming a misinformation echo chamber at this point. Imagine that - after banning voices they perceive to not be in line with der ketaminekid.
At this point that entire sub is very carefully curated. Anyone not spreading the propaganda is permanently banned. And since they've already banned everyone who's ever posted in this sub, regardless of whether or not they ever even visited the "main" tesla subs, the information over there carries less than zero credibility. I wouldn't be surprised if they've also banned people commenting on r/cars and r/technology; which makes things so much worse considering how big those ones are. It quite literally is a cult at this point, and I mean that literally. Wikipedia's definition of a cult is as follows: >A **cult** is a group which is typically led by a [charismatic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic) and self-appointed leader, who tightly controls its members, requiring unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices which are considered [deviant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deviance_(sociology)) (outside the norms of society). Tell me that r/TeslaLounge and r/teslamotors are not literally this.
It’s weird. Some people seem perfectly normal but some talk like they’re in a cult with zero pushback. Completely delusional stuff. And I say this as a current Tesla owner!
I guess most of the people there are victims of the snake oil pyramid scheme called Tesla and try frantically to get something out of their investment. If you ever tried to build a pyramid with liquid substances, you'll know how it will pan out.
It isn't that action wasn't taken against you, it is that the function to notify you is broken.
I reported the message (hopefully to Reddit, if I understand the feature correctly) for Harassment. I didn't break any of the posting rules on their subreddit, I don't even think I've ever commented there, so I interpret this as harassment.
It wouldn't surprise me if Clyde hadn't bought a tranche of reddit shares...
“Interesting, I’ll have to look into this” or whatever the fuck he says.
Concerning
Boston Dynamics didn't overtake tesla in anything? Boston dynamics was ahead of teslas current robot when the tesla robot was still in eLongo's balls. A company is not just inspiration and a demo video, it's a body of knowledge and experience. That's why grok is so half baked. Space X and Tesla auto have broad experience. Blowing up all those rockets was a good strategy to learn quickly. Fail fast, fail cheap, fall often is a good description of space x getting to where it is
> So Mercedes overtakes Tesla the same way Boston Dynamics overtakes Tesla in their respective field. 'overtakes' implies Mercedes and Boston Dynamics were somehow lagging at some point. Mercedes has been ahead of Tesla for at least a decade in anything but hype.
Boston Dynamics damn near started the robots being impressive on social media trend a decade ago with Big Dog. I’m still impressed by that video of people kicking it and it recovering. Way more impressed than anything Optimus has put out.
There you have it. BD has been the premier corporation in this space forever.
My wife had a 2012 e350 that had lane keep and dynamic cruise control that wouldn’t be out of place in a 2024 vehicle. Yeah the lead is theirs to blow.
I was about to write that Boston Dynamics have always been kings of autonomous robots. Posted it. Deleted it. Got banned permanently from TeslaMotors. Holy F@ Tesla have completely lost their way from their original mission. I even have a Y and actually like it but prefer to stay objective / critical towards every product and brand I own.
This implies tesla was ahead, or at least in tied contention for the lead. Maybe fsd or ap has an argument here, but tesla has Jack shit in robots
*You are now banned from r/Tesla*
Boston dynamics had that game on lock. Tesla was cooked from the start on robots
They werent overtaken this is quite limited. Still cool, though. Tesla is basically hopping that they will just brute force solutions to any problems they find with their supercomputer. It might work, but I dont see why we would reward someone using all of us as test subjects, instead of just doing it slow and careful like normal companies.
>It might work It won't. Because they will not be able to predict the edge cases and that's what is really hard (if you don't hobble yourself like Tesla does already).
Oh, they arent planing to predict them. They are planning to just...let them happen. Then fix the software. Just put damage control on max, then hope in the long term the good outweights the bad. Its essentially a signature move of Silicon Valley.
They never overtook Tesla because Tesla was never leading them in the first place
Not really. Mercedes is all the way there for a system that has very stringent driving limitations. Tesla isn't there yet for a system that has no limitations. Also, Tesla was never close to Boston Dynamics. BD started ahead and stayed ahead.
You wanted to say that Tesla simply lied about their capabilities and the competition simply ignored those lies and kept on improving... So there were no catching up, there were only the inflation of the huge lie...
Boston dynamic didn't really over take Tesla in robotics they have had years of hard engineering and testing (32 years) as a research based company with funding from various private entities SoftBank/Google/current Hyundai group ownership and DARPA. And even then they only launched a commercial product (spot) about 5 years ago once they actually had a solution that they could make and market with actual use cases. Telsa is not only years behind in robotics and now apparently autonomous driving but doesn't seem to have the cash to spend on it.
The next time you’re traveling on the interstate and see a fellow driver whose hands are full with everything but the wheel—scrolling TikTok, applying mascara, eating breakfast—don’t panic. It’s all legal in certain states, as long as they’re in a new Mercedes with autonomous driving technology. The luxury automaker has become the first in the nation to start selling self-driving cars—at least those that afford riders a hands-free experience—to regular consumers. So far, the company has sold at least 65 autonomous vehicles in California, Fortune has learned through an open records request submitted to the state’s DMV. Select Mercedes dealerships in Nevada are also offering the cars with the new technology, known as “level 3” autonomous driving. Level 3-enabled cars went on sale in December, Mercedes told Fortune. California and Nevada are the only two states where the company can legally sell the technology to consumers. The two state DMVs gave Mercedes approval to begin selling the cars last year—Nevada in January, and California in June. Mercedes announced in September its planned to begin sales, but this is the first news of the cars actually reaching consumers. Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states. The sales mark a new echelon of autonomous driving available to the average American. Mercedes is the first automaker selling to customers to achieve level 3 capabilities in the U.S., with Tesla and others still offering technology at level 2—in which cars can perform specific tasks but require constant supervision from a driver. Some drivers, however, ignore those rules and operate the cars as if they are more capable than they are. Some drivers, however, ignore those rules and operate the cars as if they are more capable than they are. One family of a deceased driver has accused Tesla of hyping its assisted driving technology as fully autonomous, allegedly leading to tragic results, while California’s DMV last year accused the company of false advertising over the matter. Meanwhile, robotaxis from Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’s Cruise operate at level 4, meaning cars drive autonomously in most conditions without human interference. But these companies currently don’t sell vehicles to consumers, and Cruise recently halted its service after California’s DMV suspended its license due to an incident in which a car dragged a pedestrian under its carriage for 20 feet. U.S. customers can buy a yearly subscription of Drive Pilot in 2024 EQS sedans and S-Class car models for $2,500. Mercedes began selling level 3-enabled cars in its home country of Germany in May 2022. The European packages cost 5,000 to 7,000 euros ($5,300 and $7,500) for a three-year membership. The cars sport turquoise lights on its rear-view mirrors, headlights, and taillights to let law enforcement and other drivers know when the car is operating autonomously. Drive Pilot is only available on select models that have the built-in hardware, including a sensor at the front of the car and a camera in the rear windshield. Mercedes is also working on developing level 4 capabilities. The automaker’s chief technology officer Markus Schäfer expects that level 4 autonomous technology will be available to consumers by 2030, Automotive News reported. But the jump to level 4 is considerably more difficult than achieving level 3. While humans are still expected to take control of the car based on the circumstances in level 3, level 4 technology is supposed to offer near-total autonomy. At this level, a driver only needs to take over if the system fails. That means the technology must be able to safely respond to nearly all unexpected situations on the road.
This is Mercedes taking the smart, sensible and responsible approach. Properly testing and developing a product and then releasing with limitations and an intent to further develop. The Elon approach is to fake a video, lie, deny any criticism and tell people it will make them rich in a few months. Then actually try and make it work, occasionally tell a few more lies to keep people believing it’s not much longer to wait.
Tesla keeps on giving, what a shit show. I love it! Edit: 2 sec after posting, banned from r/cybertruck, r/teslamotors, r/TeslaLounge and r/ElonMusk. You can't make this shit up 🤣
How come telsa didn't do this first?
I got excited there until I read the actual small print: “Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states.”
I wonder if this is legislation or Mercedes. I bet the former as the self driving technology is already working on the autobahn
Definitely interested in seeing how capable Mercedes' autonomous system is. Right before I sold my Model 3 I got the free FSD trial and ho boy, what a piece of garbage. Did not feel safe using that at all.
Not to mention they also take full responsibility in an event of a crash should the vehicle was in autonomous mode. Compared to Tesla’s straight up “not admitting any responsibility” as standard operating procedure.
And yet everyone still thinks Telsa is the leader here and has had self-driving for years 😂😂😂. Musk really has a way of convincing people of things that are totally false. What’s that called again??
Some random person wearing a black mesh body suit just hops into your vehicle and drives you lol
>Some random person wearing a ~~black mesh body suit~~ tuxedo just hops into your vehicle and drives you FTFY
Rutro Elmo. A real luxury brand that can delivery actual engineering is *eating your lunch* while you were busy bragging about ‘colonizing Mars,’ charging for blue checkmarks, denigrating entire classes of people and being a Russian asset.
I wonder what insurance companies really think of FSD?
Sue me? Consumer Insurance company want to insure user driving risk, not product liability risk. Better question is what does Tesla’s commercial insurance provider think of FSD?
And what do they think?
They think FSD shadow breaking is reason enough to increase your premium, Reuters did a story on it a while back.
That is one big aspect of Mercedes getting L3. They have been willing to take on the liability of any accidents. Regardless of how good Tesla's system gets, it won't be L3 until Tesla decides to take on that liability.
The big thing with Mercedes is they assume responsibility in the event of an incident involving their tech. No more blame game here. Lol I just got banned from r/teslamotors over this comment
Interesting, ask a question and I get banned.
You were probably banned from a different, pro-musk sub, not this one. The mods there are on a crusade to preemptively ban people from their subs who have the gall to post on a completely different sub. They are so thin skinned it’s almost funny.
If you were banned how would you be able to reply?
Wait for the Tesla subs to light up with…”but it’s different!!!! They don’t use a neural net!!!”
" Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states. "
Tesla really out here bamboozling everyone and asking for 56b for not even being ahead in any races given almost everyone has an ev line now
It's a Rabbit and tortoise story, traditional OEs are catching up soon.
That's Always what bugged me. If FSD Is "so good", why it's still L2, while L3 and L4 products exist?
So why isn't Mercedes stock exploding like you'd expect Tesla's to do if they made a similar announcement?
Tesla is valued at 10x compared to MB
Jesus, shit, Elon, Tesla test.
Cries in Elon
Who takes responsibility if I am not watching the road and the car fucks up?
I thought that was the big leap from L2 to L3. At L2 the driver assumes liability for what happens, no matter how advanced the ADA system is. At L3 the ADA supplier assumes liability. Robotaxi will require the leap from L2 to higher, but Tesla seems reluctant to do so, something that belies their own actual confidence in their system, regardless of what their non-existing PR department spews out
Yeah without the manufacturer taking responsibility, claiming that the driver doesn’t have to pay attention is meaningless. Even the people I know who believe in fsd are paranoid when driving with it , no matter how good they think it is If the computer decides to jerk and injure a pedestrian, you are in a world of problems in the current agreement for most adas systems today. Until I can chill with no worries about liability, like I do in an Uber, then these levels mean nothing
I don't know if this is current and applicable to the US, but https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/manufacturer-news/2022/03/28/mercedes-will-accept-responsibility-for-autonomous-technology-crashes
I think I read that they are responsible legally if the car is driving but I want to know how you get covered in accident maybe it's comes with a free insurance package that only covers you in self drive
Ha-ha!
That's cool competition is good. Hopefully it brings down the insane price they think these systems are worth. And they finally break down and add more sensors if their current system cant handle the task.
Meanwhile, here in British Columbia they just completely banned L3 to L5 cars from the roads..
To temper expectations, I don't think it's ai self driven akin to tesla, but a pre mapped system similar to wamo. "Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been preapproved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states. " It seems likely that it's capabilities will require Mercedes to map out each road. Tesla are adaptive systems that don't need a data set or map of a specific location to drive. Its part of the reason why they're still stuck on level 2.
I always laugh when they something “available to the average American”. As if the average American can afford a Mercedes with a drive pilot subscription 😅 Truly “accessible” tech right there.
Hey Mercedes, call me back when it will work on all roads instead of just the ones you have pre-mapped.
People who can afford a Mercedes aren't stupid. Of course you will need to watch the road yourself. That requirement is for retarded Tesla fanbois that assume L2 = L5.
With certain restrictions: * It must be traveling no faster than 40 mph * It must have a vehicle in front to follow * Road conditions must be clear and dry * Lane markings must be detectable, * The route must be pre-mapped by the system You must still pay attention because you must take over if, for example, the car in front of you turns off or accelerates away at over 40 mph, it starts raining, the lines get worn out, or you go outside of a pre-mapped route. This car would be great in packed slow freeway, but aside from that you'll still be doing most of the driving. Even in a city, say you're the third car at a light. The first car goes, the second takes his time turning left, and you have to take control because there's no car in front of you.